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What we know • Massive power outage: Large parts of Spain and Portugal experienced major power outages, shutting off traffic lights and causing chaos at airports and train stations. • Repair efforts underway: Spanish power grid operator Red Electrica said it was working with energy companies to restore power. “The causes are being analyzed and all resources are being dedicated to solving it,” it said.

Outgoing FBI Director Christopher Wray revealed during an interview on Sunday, a week before he steps down, that China has penetrated America’s water treatment plants, electric grid, and other critical civilian infrastructure, and is lying “in wait” for an opportunity to cyberattack at a time and place of its choosing. Asked on CBS’s 60 Minutes about Chinese penetration of U.S. cyber and infrastructure, Wray said China’s cyber program is the largest in the world and has stolen more of Americans’ personal and corporate data than every nation combined. Then, he added: But even beyond the cyber theft. There’s another part...

NEW YORK/WASHINGTON, Jan 2 (Reuters) - Constellation Energy has been awarded a record $1 billion in contracts to supply nuclear power to the U.S. government over the next decade, the company said on Thursday. Constellation, the country's largest operator of nuclear power plants, will deliver electricity to more than 13 federal agencies as part of the agreements with the U.S. General Services Administration. The deal is the biggest energy purchase in the history of the GSA....

The rapid growth of data centers to support AI is significantly increasing global electricity demand.This surge in demand threatens to outpace the development of renewable energy sources.International regulations are needed to ensure tech companies use clean energy and minimize their impact on climate goals.The global electricity demand is expected to grow exponentially in the coming decades, largely due to an increased demand from tech companies for new data centers to support the rollout of high-energy-consuming advanced technologies, such as artificial intelligence (AI). As governments worldwide introduce new climate policies and pump billions into alternative energy sources and clean tech, these...

Cuba's government said late on Saturday it had restored power to nearly one-fifth of the island's people after the national grid collapsed twice in 24 hours, plunging millions of people into darkness. The unprecedented nationwide blackout is the latest blow in the nation of 10 million, already suffering from dramatic shortages of food, medicine and fuel. Cuba's top electricity official, Lazaro Guerra, said the grid operator was working to restore electricity but that the process would be slow and rushing the job could lead to more blackouts and a deterioration of service. "I cannot assure you that we will be...

Prices for generators, transformers, and other utility components are soaring. Hurricane Helene (and now Milton) will make the problem worse.. The reports about the damage caused by Hurricane Helene and the amount of water dumped on the region by the storm are gobsmacking. Last week, my friend, Jimmy Fortuna, an energy industry executive who lives in Asheville, sent me a text. He said, “Brother, I’m telling you, it’s like God’s own bulldozer went down these mountains and valleys. Maybe it did. Whole sections of town in Asheville and some whole towns in the mountains around us turned into mud flats.”...

Once a huge champion of all things digital, I’ve come to develop serious doubts about the pace at which humanity made the switch from analog to the cloud. The hackings, outages, data breaches, and extended breakages all make the point. But the danger is even greater. Most of the things we use today have not been stress tested. They are centralized and have a single point of failure. And they are very vulnerable. It could all stop in an instant with no sure guarantee of when it will come back. A turning point came for me recently, while visiting a...

Datacenters coming online in the next 15 months will need to supply at least some of their own powerUpdated As the saying goes, everything is bigger in Texas, but as datacenter footprints explode amid the AI boom, regulators fear even the Lone Star state's utilities won't be able to keep up for much longer. The Texas' Public Utility Commission is now warning datacenter operators looking to set up shop in the US state within the next 12 to 15 months that they won't be able to rely entirely on the local grid and will have to supply at least some...

Assessments by the North American Electric Reliability Corporation, which analyzes the continent’s electricity supply reliability, have been warning that large portions of the U.S. grid are threatened with increased risks of blackouts. Jim Robb, CEO of NERC, said that risk is growing as more than 100 billion watts of thermal power generation, meaning coal- and natural gas-fired power plants, is slated for retirement over the next 10 years.

Rep. Greg Casar (D-Texas) on Monday led 22 members of Congress in requesting that the Department of Energy add Texas to the areas serviced by proposed federal corridors for electrical transmission. In May, the department announced 10 proposed National Interest Electric Transmission Corridors (NIETCs) that, if implemented, could make federal funds available to expand grid capability in those areas. However, Texas, which relies on the self-contained Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT), was not among the proposed sites. “The United States needs a 21st-century electric grid [and] you can’t have a 21st-centutry electric grid with a giant hole in the...

The Port of Baltimore is “closed until further notice” following the Francis Scott Key Bridge tragedy, sending several industries into disarray and jeopardizing national security. In 2023, the port handled a record amount of international cargo, ranked ninth for both dollar value and tonnage in the United States. Vital for both imports and exports of a variety of commodities, the Port of Baltimore has always had international significance and the impact of its closure will be wide-ranging and long-term for the supply chain in the United States and beyond. Given the seriousness of this issue, Congress must come together to...

As federal net-zero policies attempt to shift transportation, heating, and other essentials onto the electric grid, one of the hottest growth sectors of America’s economy is poised to increase electricity demand exponentially, further straining an energy infrastructure that is being pushed into the red. Data centers, the so-called “brains of the internet,” are industrial warehouses packed with rows upon rows of servers. They process, communicate, and store the data behind everything from bank records, online retailers, and social media platforms to Netflix shows and your personal iPhone videos. “Data centers are essential to cloud computing and its ability to give...

Vast swaths of the United States are at risk of running short of power as electricity-hungry data centers and clean-technology factories proliferate around the country, leaving utilities and regulators grasping for credible plans to expand the nation’s creaking power grid. In Georgia, demand for industrial power is surging to record highs, with the projection of new electricity use for the next decade now 17 times what it was only recently. Arizona Public Service, the largest utility in that state, is also struggling to keep up, projecting it will be out of transmission capacity before the end of the decade absent...

While investments in renewable energy have doubled since 2010, power grid funding has remained ‘static.’.. Electricity grid capacity available in the world isn't keeping pace with the rapid growth of "clean energy" technologies, possibly putting governments' climate goals at risk, according to a recent report by the International Energy Agency (IEA). In order to achieve climate goals set by global governments, more than 80 million kilometers (49.7 million miles) of electric grids have to be added or refurbished by 2040, which is the “equivalent of the entire existing global grid,” according to the Oct. 17 IEA report. Even though “electrification...

The state of California, which has struggled to reconcile its aggressive "green energy" agenda against its unreliable and blackout-prone power grid, may have an admittedly "unconventional" solution thanks to a proposal from Pacific Gas and Electric Company (PG&E): Using electric cars to charge the power grid. PG&E, which provides power for around 16 million California residents, sees "great potential" for EVs to act as power grid backup generators. "The grid needs those electric vehicles. We need to make it available, and it can be a huge resource," he added, per The Orange County Register. Just the News contacted PG&E for...

How many warnings does it take before the Biden Administration wakes up to the risks from its climate policies to the U.S. electric grid? The latest came this month from the North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC), and please pray the wind keeps blowing. NERC’s summer reliability assessment forecasts that no less than two-thirds of the U.S., including most everyone living west of the Mississippi River, could experience power outages. Texas and most of the Midwest should have enough power to meet demand—assuming they don’t experience any sizzling hot and still summer days. Texas last summer narrowly averted a power...

Lincoln Power LLC, the owner of two Illinois power plants, filed for bankruptcy after its financial strain was exacerbated by nearly $39 million in penalties levied by the biggest US electric-grid operator. The Chapter 11 filing allows Lincoln, a unit of Carlyle Group-backed Cogentrix Energy Power Management LLC, to keep operating while working on a plan to repay creditors. PJM Interconnection LLC, which runs the grid that stretches from Washington to Chicago, fined Lincoln after its plants in Elgin and East Dundee, Illinois, failed to generate enough power during a severe winter storm in December. The grid operator in February...

PJM Interconnection sounds the latest alarm that fossil-fuel plants are shutting down without adequate replacement power. The political class yawns. ... The warnings keep coming that the force-fed energy transition to renewable fuels is destabilizing the U.S. electric grid, but is anyone in government paying attention? ... The PJM report forecasts power supply and demand through 2030 across the 13 eastern states in its territory covering 65 million people. ... Fossil-fuel power plants are retiring much faster than renewable sources are getting developed, which could lead to energy “imbalances.” That’s a delicate way of saying that you can expect shortages...

The vast majority of the population of Pakistan – about 220 million of 240 million people – was left without electricity on Monday after a “widespread breakdown in the power system,” according to the Ministry of Energy. Pakistan is one of the world’s most densely populated countries and boasts a stable of six operable nuclear reactors in addition to a power grid largely supplied by coal and other fossil fuels. It experiences routine regional blackouts, particularly in more remote regions, but Monday’s total collapse presents a new level of severity in infrastructure malfunction. The blackout, which persisted in much of...

Texans could have a dark, cold Christmas if an Arctic blast headed east continues its path. Texas suffered a massive power grid failure in February 2021 after three severe winter storms and frigid temperatures stressed the grid. The grid's failure resulted in millions of Texans losing power, leading to a lack of food, water and warmth. The failure proved fatal, and hundreds died because of the outage. The failure dealt a blow to the economy as well, resulting in a loss of at least $195 billion. Since the 2021 power grid failure, other uncharacteristic storms have hit the Lone Star...